Saint Patrick and the Hurricane

The most vivid recollections I have from my youth growing up in Connecticut were of the savage hurricane and tidal wave which struck New York and New England on September 21, 1938. It was one of the most devastating natural disasters recorded in the history of North America. Most of us who lived through it would agree with one survivor's description of it as a preview of the end of the world. It killed nearly 700 people and hurled hundreds of coastal homes and their occupants into the sea leaving little trace of where they had been. A primitive Weather Bureau provided no warning whatever to the unsuspecting population. The hurricane which they long maintained would never happen in that part of the country destroyed 45,000 buildings and two billion trees. It traumatized millions of people with its shocking cruelty which will live forever in the dramatic eyewitness accounts which have been provided. In these pre-chainsaw days, it took weeks for strong men working in pairs with cross cut saws merely to get the streets cleared.

An inestimable number of windows were destroyed in the historic storm. This is the story of one of them. It was a great stained glass memorial in St. Patrick's Church, now the Cathedral of the Diocese of Norwich in Connecticut. It depicted in beautiful artistry the patron saint of Ireland holding aloft a shamrock to instruct a fascinated pagan audience on the Trinity. It had been designed and built in Munich, Germany and installed in time for the opening of St. Patrick's Church in 1879. It was revered for the love and honor it paid to the parish patron.

The window was a lost treasure which almost everyone agreed could never be replaced. And yet, if you visit St. Patrick's Cathedral today, you will view an exactly duplicated window that has reigned in splendor indistinguishable from the original. How this work was restored is part mystery and part miracle but we know it was achieved by the long forgotten ingenuity, sacrifice, devotion and patience of the community which worked for nearly two years with unrelenting exactitude in the midst of the Great Depression. The fact that it was reconstructed represented for my fellow parishioners and many folks in the town a great victory over the hated hurricane which destroyed so much of our area and demoralized its people. It was, if you will, a way of striking back at the worst forces of nature.

The day following the hurricane broke bright and clear. A seventh grader in St. Patrick's School and a parish altar boy, I had been assigned to serve the seven o'clock Mass. After working my way through the jungle of toppled trees, entangled electrical wires and parts of smashed houses, I was stunned when I saw the church. The great cross which had dominated the city's skyline for so long had been blown down and part of the church steeple and roof had been destroyed. But far worse, a huge sickening hole had replaced the preaching St. Patrick in the transept of the church.

During the hurricane I had seen the towering chimney behind the church crushed to the ground by the fierce winds just minutes after I had passed under it. Released from school at the height of the storm's fury, fifth grader Mary Ann McGrory, a marvelous lady who still lives in Norwich, and I holding hands tightly had been working our way in fits and start across the school yard when the chimney fell. It increased our determination to continue our frightening tract back to our homes.

Now Father Alexander F. Mitchell, our pastor, calmly surveyed the day-after awful mess in his church and ordered several of us bystanders to immediately start the cleanup. In those days we never questioned an order from our pastor. Manning long handled push brooms for several hours, we carefully followed our directions to store the broken glass in large barrels and save it. We realized later that the pastor even then was planning the window's duplication and restoration. The original plans for it were long lost and extensive search for even a snapshot was futile. When a number of experts told the pastor the window could never be duplicated, his response reportedly was "Nonsense, God and St. Patrick will help us to do it."

Most of the exterior damage to the church had been repaired by early spring, 1939. Many of us school kids and the Sisters of Mercy who taught us, watched in awe as "Steeple Tom," Fitzpatrick, imported from Boston, placed a six and one half foot copper cross on the tip of the 205 foot rebuilt spire. The church chimney had been quickly rebuilt and other outside damage had also been repaired.

But the St. Patrick window was a different matter. For many months ugly boards covered the spot where it had been. Not only were the mechanics of duplicating the old window illusive but the money to finance it was scarce to nonexistent in these depression years. Further economic dislocation was caused by the hurricane which destroyed the fishing industry along the northeast coast and in addition to the extensive damage caused to most homes, wiped out livestock and crops on thousands of area farms. It was not a time when fund raising was easy.

Although many of our fathers were out of work, St. Pat's school kids worked for over a year at little penny producing jobs and for Christmas 1939 presented a delighted Father Mitchell with the handsome gift of nearly $50.00, very big bucks in those days, to go toward the window. In the meantime, some of the city's most influential citizens and young men and women who were soon to be important names in the state put on a huge successful bazaar in July 1939 to raise funds for the window.

Little seems to be known as to exactly how the great St. Patrick window was duplicated but there are clues. Father Mitchell was in touch with German experts in the company which built the original widow. They advised him on the restoration. On the very day of the hurricane, Czechoslovakia in the famous Munich Conference caved in to Germany's demand to occupy its territory. Despite British Prime Minister Chamberlain's boast of "peace in our times" World War II broke out in Europe less than a year after the hurricane. If Father Mitchell had delayed just a few months, vital German help to him in duplicating the window would probably not have been available.

We know too that from the glass we had swept up arid saved, as much as possible of the old window was painstakingly reassembled, probably to provide a model for the new one. One report indicated that some tiny symbols being found on a few pieces of glass in some way helped the Germans to plan the new window. Then wonder of wonders the Lord answered an ocean of prayers. A snapshot of the old window was produced by someone in a neighboring parish who had been unaware of the vital search for it. The little picture authenticated much of the work already done and filled in some important gaps which hindered completion.

The pastor and the community had demanded and worked for an exact duplicate of the awesome and beloved window. That is what they got. Although parish records are unclear, the window was probably unveiled on or near St. Patrick's Day in 1940. Patrick was back in all his kindly majesty preaching to the pagans again. He is still there.

Visitors today continue to thrill to the patterns of changing light produced by the sun's rays when they stream through the high window. Parishioners, as they have for more than half of our country's history, continue to find St. Patrick's intercession with God a bit more accessible when they pray to him in the presence of and with the inspiration afforded by the great window. The historic deeds 15 centuries ago in Ireland of this slave turned gentle missionary bishop are surely better known but Patrick's conquest of the Hurricane of 1938 with the help of the people of our fair city has a power, drama and charm all its own.